BADASS DIGEST

Badass Digest is a new favorite website of mine. It's probably the only film-related website I look at any more—mainly because they don't waste posts on who might get cast in a movie that might not even get made because it hasn't been written yet. That kind of thing has driven me away from sites that I used to love (like slashfilm.com) because I just don't care. Show me a trailer and then I can get excited.

Anyway, they've been trying pretty hard to diversify from the pack of movie websites and aren't all that concerned with getting 'scoops' and cheap hits, which is the biggest problem with online news sites nowadays. They still do their fair share of reporting rumors, but it's not as bad as some of the others.

One thing they've started doing is a web series where the EIC/founder of the site, Devin Faraci, goes to awesome places around Los Angeles and Hollywood to film and talk about cool things. My two favorite episodes are embedded below.

In the first, he goes to the Universal Backlot and wanders around the sets of all the classic monster movies from back in the day. It's a little bit of a veiled advertisement for the newly released Universal Monsters Blu-Ray collection, but it's still awesome to see all those old sets still standing and a cool way to learn a few facts that I never knew about   (like the reason Frankenstein walks with his arms out in front of him).

The second, is about prop collector Bob Burns. His basement is full of the original props from some of the greatest sci-fi, horror and monster movies of all time. He's got awesome stuff in there and I'm sure there are tons of things that didn't end up in the video.

Both these videos are right up my alley, because when I was little the first thing that I wanted to do "when I grew up" was make special effects for movies. As soon as I found out that was actually a thing, I wanted to be the guy that made them. Of course, that goes back to needing artistic ability, which I don't have on that level. I can write the shit out of some words, but actual designing and drawing is not a skill set that I possess. Believe me, I've tried. But still, that kind of thing always fascinated me and these videos just enhance that love for effects and props.

Check them out. And head over to Badass Digest.com to see more videos and have a look around. Pretty good stuff.

SCIENCE FICTION LAND - THE MOVIE

Remember this post? The one about the great Jack Kirby's Science Fiction Land?

For some reason, that post got picked up by Reddit and is officially the most popular thing that's ever been on trevorhale.com.

Go ahead and read it and then we'll get to the next part.

I'll wait. I've got plenty of time.

Done? Good. Let's go.

Did you see ARGO? You should, because it's fantastic. SCIENCE FICTION LAND is a documentary about the movie within the movie that ARGO is built around.

The fake movie that Ben Affleck and John Goodman set out to make was actually a real movie—as you know from the other post. There were tons of drawings and concept art for the whole thing all put together by Jack Kirby (who is actually in ARGO for maybe 5 seconds, but never mentioned by name). Then it all fell apart in the scandal that I mentioned in the other post, also.

What I didn't know was that for over a decade now, there's been a guy by the name of Judd Ehrlich researching and filming a documentary about the book LORD OF LIGHT and the Science Fiction Land theme park that was supposed to go along with it.

From the look of the video they put together, it's really going to be something interesting. They've got interviews with Barry Ira Gellar, the mastermind of the whole movie/theme park that was busted for embezzling the money for the movie and a whole bunch of other people that were originally involved with the project.

It just sounds like a really interesting story and I'd actually like to see the documentary.

The team has set up a Kickstarter, but it only has a few days left. Head over to check out the video and donate a few dollars if you want to.

SCIENCE FICTION LAND Kickstarter page.

Or if you don't really have any money to donate, you can go here instead. There's a whole bunch of Kirby's drawings for LORD OF LIGHT there and they're just as amazing as you'd hope.

HOW TIME TRAVEL WORKS

I'm always fascinated by time travel stories because essentially you get to make the rules up as you go. But that's the catch—you have to have rules that your story lives by.

That's where I always get tripped up when time travel is a factor in something I write. I spend too much time on the rules and not enough time on the story itself. It's a problem that I have, but it's not a real, life threatening problem and most of those stories won't ever see the light of day anyway, so...

Enjoy the video.

By the way... I saw LOOPER last night and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I might have to resurrect the Half-Assed Reviews in its honor. Holy Shit.

How Time Travel Works from Flavorwire on Vimeo.

JACK KIRBY'S SCIENCE FICTION LAND

Now that you've all seen the trailer for ARGO and read the Wired Magazine piece about it, let's talk about the absolute best part of the article—Jack Kirby's Science Fiction Land.

If you don't know who he is, Jack Kirby was the artist responsible for co-creating the majority of the Marvel Universe as we know it today. There's been a lot of talk recently (notably here and here) about how unfairly Kirby was treated when he obviously shouldered a lot of the load right alongside Stan Lee, but was never recognized to the extent that Lee was/is.

There are people that feel so passionate about the subject that they won't even see THE AVENGERS (which I'll get to eventually with a Half-Assed Review) because Kirby isn't given the credit he deserves. It's an ongoing debate that will never, ever be settled.

But that subject aside, Kirby was an awesome genius. Some of his creations were completely off the wall and bizarre, but they were also so incredibly creative that you couldn't help but admire them. In that Wired article there's the bit about the fake movie they're using and how it was actually a real, in-the-works film that got the plug pulled. Kirby had been hired to do concept drawings and along the way, the producer came up with the idea for a theme park called Science Fiction Land based on Kirby's drawings.

According to the article, "it would include a 300-foot-tall Ferris wheel, voice-operated mag-lev cars, a 'planetary control room' staffed by robots, and a heated dome almost twice as tall as the Empire State Building."

Sounds amazing, right? Unfortunately, the reason that the CIA was able to use the script and concept drawings for ARGO to bolster their fake production for the rescue of American hostages was because the men behind the original film/theme park were complete crooks.

In an article on the Denver Westworld website earlier this year, Melanie Asmar relates the story of their embezzlement and crooked dealings in her story about Colorado's new tourist incentives. Stuntman Jerry Schafer and writer Barry Ira Gellar ended up being charged with 11 felonies and brought down a few government employees as well.

It's a real shame it never came to be. It would no doubt be laughably but lovably out of date by now, the same way Disney's Tomorrowland is, but still amazing at the same time. Yesterday's vision of the future is one of my favorite things of all time and this fits in perfectly. I can't believe I didn't know about this before today, either.

These are a few of the headlines from the Rocky Mountain News from the time all this was going on. You can see a few more at the Denver Westworld link above.

NO HOPE

We can argue all day about whether or not the moon landing in 1969 was real (and there will never be a definitive conclusion). I like to believe that it was because I'm a huge fan of the whole space race thing and think it's a shame that it's almost non-existent now.

But a friend of mine, Dan Fletcher (maybe you've heard of him), directed me to this site that has all kinds of awesome stuff. A few of the posts are related to the moon landing and the one that I found the most fascinating was how Richard Nixon had a speech prepared in case the astronauts never made it back.

Motherboard -- If the Apollo 11 astronauts had been become stranded on the Moon, William Safire drafted a speech for President Richard Nixon to read on television to the nation.

The plans said that Mission Control was to “close down communications” with the Lunar Module. In a public ritual likened to burial at sea, clergyman would then have commended their souls to “the deepest of the deep” Presidential telephone calls to the astronauts’ wives were also planned.

The speech came from a memo from Safire to Nixon’s chief of staff H. R. Haldeman in which Safire suggested a protocol the administration might follow in reaction to such an event.

"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown."

WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER?

I don't.

Gaurdian -- Aeroplanes will be too afraid to crash, yoghurts will wish you good morning before being eaten and human consciousness will be stored on supercomputers, promising immortality for all - though it will help to be rich.

These fantastic claims are not made by a science fiction writer or a crystal ball-gazing lunatic. They are the deadly earnest predictions of Ian Pearson, head of the futurology unit at BT.

'If you draw the timelines, realistically by 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem,' Pearson told The Observer. 'If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible. If you're poor you'll probably have to wait until 2075 or 2080 when it's routine. We are very serious about it. That's how fast this technology is moving: 45 years is a hell of a long time in IT.'

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EMERALD CITY

I went to Seattle this weekend to see Unbroken. I've always wanted to see them and I missed both the Chicago and California shows, so I figured this might be my last chance. Totally worth the trip. They were awesome, shit got nuts and I had a good time.

However, I did manage to make one giant, idiotic mistake. I left my bag in the overhead compartment on the plane. Such a dumb move.

I had been off the plane for an hour before I realized it. I had everything important in my backpack, so I wasn't too stressed, but I had no clothes. Kristien drove me to the nearest Target so I could get a few things, so that was a plus but still. Pretty sure i'll never get it back, either. I didn't put any tags on it (since it was a carry-on) and it wasn't in the SEA/TAC lost and found. The nice lady did send an e-mail to the next three places that plane went to, but I'm not holding out much hope.

All I lost was a few shirts, a hoodie and a pair of pants that was falling apart, but I did lose a badass shirt that had an ape king riding a mastodon. Oh well.

I did tourist-y shit all day Saturday before the show: Went to the EMP, the Sci-Fi Museum and the Aquarium. Weather was nice and I spent the whole day walking, then the show that night was awesome.

Nothing too exciting. Sorry for the bland post, it's late and I'm not very creative today.

I think I'll take a cue from Brandee and start making this blog a little more entertaining. After all, isn't that why you're here?